


It has to be you

by linzackles



Category: Garcy - Fandom, Timeless - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Flynn pov, Future Flynn saves Past Lucy with Rufus' help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 01:46:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15013982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linzackles/pseuds/linzackles
Summary: Lucy's car slips off an oil slick and careens into the river. Someone is supposed to happen by and save her. But what if no one does? What if a Flynn from the future is supposed to be the one to save her? What if it has to be him? [Or: Lucy and Flynn's first three meetings]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing these characters. I really hope it's not terrible and that you'll enjoy reading :)

**Sao Paulo, 2016**

"Five minutes."

Garcia looks down at his watch. 4 minutes and 58 seconds.

Nice trick, he'd drawl dryly. Normally, that would've been his response. If his mind weren't still reeling.

"Five minutes," she says again. "That's all I asked you to give me, before you put a gun to my head just for knowing where you were and who you are. Was that right?"

For the first time, as she quotes his threat back to him, he sees playfulness in her eyes. Not that he still believes she's with the people trying to kill him.

She's far worse.

"Do you really expect me to believe anything you just said?"

He wants to hurt her. Hurt her for the way she has hurt him, giving him hope. But there is something undeniable about her; about everything she’s said. Maybe it's the Tomb Raider look or the sheer desperation in her eyes.

She leans over the bar table, close. She smells like strawberry milkshake and gunpowder. He's so busy trying to process this that he almost misses her words.

"I know what you're going through. I know it hurts." She seems to hesitate, think better if it, then pulls her hand out from underneath the table and lays it over his anyway. "Garcia."

His eyes meet her iridescent ones. He catches himself wishing he could look into them forever. They're so wise and... comforting.

The very thought makes him frown, but she's looking back at him like she understands. His very thoughts. What he's going through. What he will go through.

But… does that really mean he’s going to allow himself to believe in _time travel_?

"Please. You need to do this. For all our sakes." She hesitates again, with a quivering breath, then: "For _their sakes_."

There's no doubt who she means. Their screams still slash through his nightmares. Their smiles are indelibly etched on the insides of his eyelids.

He looks down at where her hand lays atop his, grasping. There are two rings there.

"You're married."

She looks down at her own hand in surprise, as if it has betrayed her, then buries it back beneath the table.

"Yes."

"Your husband, does he love you?"

She looks straight back at him. "More than anything else in the world."

He nods slowly.

"That's how it should be. That's how I loved my wife; my daughter. And they were slaughtered because of me."

Her eyes have been so hard, all business and grit. But now they widen and gloss.

"I know. I'm sorry, I truly am. You didn't deserve that. _They_ didn't deserve that."

There's something about her. The way she says that, he feels closer to her despite her having settled back in her seat. He feels she understands, truly. She would've made a great NSA agent. Getting people to trust you isn't easy. And yet, he trusts her. Somehow.

"You're offering me a chance to save them,” he starts, breathing heavily. “It's bizarre and impossible but... I don’t have a choice. If there’s something to be done; if there’s even the slimmest possibility of saving my wife and child, I need to try it."

Something shoots through her eyes and he wishes he knew her half as well as she seems to know him, so he could understand what it is. It seems almost like... regret.

"I should go." She checks her watch. "He knows how important this is, but Wyatt's never been a patient man."

He wonders who this Wyatt person is. Wonders if he's her husband. But she stands and, reflexively, he panics.

"Wait, you're just going to _leave_? Where am I supposed to start?"

She emits this glow – for the first time in two weeks there is a plan; a way to make all of this right. The glow is hope and he never wants to leave its warmth. Especially in this damp bar filled with souls just as lost as him.

"That's what the journal is for, remember,” she tries to smile. “You'll figure it out, I promise."

But he doesn't feel assured. He feels like he's about to disappoint someone else.

"Don’t rely on it; on me. My family did and look where that got them. Whatever you think I'm capable of doing, I'm not. I said I'll try, but... I hope you have a backup plan."

She's standing now, her body angled for the door. When she turns back around, he sees more tears pooled in her eyes, memories flashing through them that he wishes he had access to.

Suddenly she crouches before him, so he's leaning down and their faces are inches away from the other's. He doesn't realise she's taken his hand between hers, perched on his knee, until she squeezes it assuringly. The touch is familiar, the way she does it. Like she's done it many times before. Like he should know what it means.

"You're going to have to do terrible things," she says, her bottom lip quivering. "Things you never thought you were capable of. Things to me, even. You're going to have to kill innocent people instead of saving them like you always have." She blinks and the tears fall. Her eyes averting, she watches them descend. Then she looks back up at him. "But you can stop Rittenhouse. You can save your family. You can save the world. No backup plan.” She sighs. “I hate leaving you alone, but it has to be you. Whenever you need me, whenever you want to ask me anything, look in my journal. I promise the answers are there."

She takes a breath. He wants to ask so many questions; wants to know how she knows he won't fail. Wants to know what will happen if he succeeds. What happens in her timeline? But again, it's like she can read his mind.

"As for the rest, you'll just have to wait and see." She smiles a little, wistfully, as she relinquishes his hand. "We both will."

He blinks and she's gone, the ends of her bob and the cuff of her bomber jacket just visible before disappearing out the door too. He exhales long and hard before his eyes drop to the journal in front of him; the gold LP etched into it.

It's the only proof he has that that had really just happened; that she'd really been here.

 

* * *

 

Lucy lets out a long breath as she steps into the clearing where Wyatt waits in the Lifeboat.

"How'd it go?"

She frowns. She'd hated it. Seeing him like that... It was like seeing a part of herself ripped to shreds.

She'd imagined what he'd be like, but somehow it had been so much worse. She still feels shaken. She'd never before seen him without something to fight for; to live for.

"About as well as can be expected," she forces a shrug.

Seated on the edge of the Lifeboat, Wyatt helps her as she climbs up.

He meets her eyes. "You told him he can stop it? That he can save them?"

She looks away.

He's always been able to read her.

Silence. Then: "Can't imagine it's easy giving him false hope like that."

Easy? No. It's about the hardest thing she's ever had to do. And she's had to do a lot.

_You can save your family._

He’d thought she meant Lorena and Iris, as she knew he would. But that wasn’t the family she’d meant.

She’d manipulated him. Him, of all people.

Lucy blinks away tears. She can feel herself spiralling and she knows Wyatt can tell.

She just has to get back to him. Seeing him, smiling, will draw out the voices chanting about how unrecognisable she's become. It always does.

Shaking herself off, she elbows Wyatt in the ribs.

"Come on. I promised your wife I'd have you back in time for dinner."

Wyatt smiles at the mention of Jessica but pretends to be annoyed.

"Beans in a cup. Yay."

They laugh as the door closes behind them and they spin back into their own time, Lucy still thinking about two Garcia Flynns.

 

* * *

 

Garcia stows Lucy's journal in his jacket pocket as he once again feels eyes on him.

Her presence had been so overwhelming that he'd actually forgotten for a while. But now he stands and slowly heads to the bathroom, again feeling that pair of eyes burning into his back.

Expertly he doubles back so that the man hunched over in the corner of the bar straightens instantly, surprised, when the gun settles between his shoulder blades.

"Why are you following Lucy? What do you want with me? Speak or I’ll blow your brains out."

"Whoa whoa, Flynn! Chill, man."

Two black hands go up in surrender and Garcia checks the man for weapons before settling opposite him, his gun to the man's waist.

"Hey, would you mind moving that? You once got me shot there and I'm a grudge-holder, so we don't want to go for a second time."

Garcia cocks his head then reaches out to pop the hood off the man's face. There's a bit of grey darted through his short hair, reflective, and his eyes are intelligent yet friendly. Still, Garcia Flynn has never met this man before in his life. He’d certainly never had him shot.

"Now would be the time where you speak," he growls, but adjusts the gun to be on the man's kneecap.

He won't be following Lucy when there are two rounds in both his knees.

The man puts down his hands then leans in conspiratorially. Garcia stiffens.

"I'm not following Lucy. Just happened to come early, which was right after her. I'm here for you," the man babbles. "Figured she'd be gone by now. I always forget how much of a talker she is. Not like me. I get right down to the point."

Flynn raises a brow. Cocks his gun.

"Then maybe you should do so."

Up till now the man’s been casual about the gun but now his eyes dart to it, positioned right by his knee, before he swallows.

"Ok ok, look. My name's Rufus, I'm from further in the future than she is, and I need your help saving Lucy's life."


	2. Chapter 2

"What are you talking about? And, on the off chance you're actually telling the truth, how does it explain why you were lurking?"

Rufus snickers, he supposes at his word choice, before standing. Garcia can't believe the man's audacity, with a gun trained on him.

"I was _lurking_ because that's not the Lucy we need to save. And my Lucy would be really pissed if she knew I dicked around with the timeline by meeting her when I wasn't supposed to." He mutters something beneath his breath that sounds a lot like "Especially since she's already gonna be pissed I stole the Lifeboat".

Rufus spins around, already seemingly ready to leave and daring to look annoyed with _Flynn_.

"You still haven't informed me what it is you're talking about," Garcia growls.

"Look, I'll explain on the way. Do you want to save Lucy or not?"

And this time, when he starts walking, Garcia is right behind him.

 

* * *

 

"Come on, step right up," Rufus gestures as if this is entirely normal and it's just some sort of ride at a fair.

He forces himself not to think about taking Iris to her first fair.

Rufus has 'parked' the giant machine in the middle of the woods, and though Garcia had seen some strange things while working for the NSA, he'd never seen anything like this before.

"This is a time machine? The one Lucy told me about?"

"Yip," Rufus replies happily, hitting the roof proudly as the door shuts. "We call her the Lifeboat. You're gonna steal her sister, though. The Mothership."

"There's more than one time machine, naturally," he mumbles, to which Rufus smirks.

Garcia looks around. The interior is tiny; he can just barely fit inside.

"Have a seat," Rufus gestures. Then he seems to light up at a thought. "Man oh man I'm glad I get to be the one who takes you on your very first trip."

He considers asking then thinks better of it. He's supposedly about to travel through time and he's still incredibly foggy about the details.

"You said you'd explain –"

"I will. After the hurling is over."

"The what??"

 

* * *

 

"You ok?"

Garcia wipes his mouth with a glare at the grinning man.

"You better give me a very detailed explanation about where we are and what we're doing here before I blow your guts out on principle."

"Sheesh, so much blowing out of body parts. Fine, I'll tell you, but let's get moving. We need to steal a car."

"Of course we do," he mutters, tagging behind.

"Ok, look," Rufus starts, as they begin making their way to what Garcia hopes is a main road. "Yesterday – _my_ yesterday – Jiya saw –"

"Who?"

"She's my –" Then, thinking better of sharing this information: "It doesn't matter who she is. The point is she sees things."

"Like a psychic?" he snorts.

"Try calling her that to her face and you'll get scalped. But... yeah, she has visions. And not only of the future. Yesterday she had one and in it she saw a younger Lucy drowning. Except, in it, Lucy had long hair. When we met her, Lucy's hair was pretty short." Now the man became less animated, his face growing muted. "Anyway, that's about all she saw before... before Lucy died," Rufus managed to choke out, his eyes averted. He took a moment before shaking himself off to continue: "I was wracking my brain when I remembered Wyatt telling me that when Lucy was in her twenties, she'd had a car accident. Right into a river. She nearly drowned, but someone pulled her out."

"Except in the vision, no one pulled her out..."

"Exactly. So I figured something changed. Either Rittenhouse's new leader is aggressively going after Lucy, or something someone did to the timeline made it so that the person who pulled her out no longer does it.” He frowns, seeming unsettled. “Or, I don't know. Maybe... Maybe this was how it was always supposed to be. All I know is that for right now the why isn’t what matters."

"No," he agrees.

"What matters is saving her."

Garcia nods. As much as he'd wanted details, he doesn't want to wrap his head around the time travel elements of the story, not at the moment. There are too many questions; too many other important things.

"Why me? Why come to fetch me? Why not save her yourself or call the authorities?"

"Two reasons. One: that journal she just gave you. It says exactly where. I'm hoping I got the when right."

They get to a car and he gives Rufus a minute to hotwire it before they jump in and race away from the scene of the crime.

Rufus seems to know where he's going, ploughing into the traffic then darting through it. He reaches behind him, where there's a baseball cap on the backseat.

"Here, put this on."

Garcia takes it reluctantly. He hates baseball.

"Why?"

"No one can recognise us. That's paramount. Most specifically to my Lucy sparing my life, but also we don't know what it might change."

With a sigh, Garcia puts on the cap then looks pointedly at Rufus. The other man shrugs.

"I'd put up my hoodie but, you know, America."

Garcia nods then slides down in his seat extra cautiously.

He finds himself wondering what Lucy's wrath is like, considering Rufus seems pretty damn wary and the guy hadn't shied away from Flynn with a gun.

"So if Lucy needs to be saved, why not have your Lucy help? Surely she could give you all the details you need."

Rufus shoots him a glance, his eyes once again dim; defeated.

"Jiya's not... well. They don't trust her anymore, the things she sees."

Garcia reads between the lines.

"She's been wrong before. Badly."

Rufus sighs, subbing his forehead; eyes trained on the road. For the second time, Garcia wishes he knew what these travellers did; could access the same memories causing them anguish.

"She's right, ok. I believe her. And besides, the opposite isn't worth the risk."

Garcia decides not to push. He doesn't disagree with the man's reasoning anyway, and Rufus seems to be affected by this line of questioning. Whoever this Jiya is, she means a lot to him.

"You never said what reason two is."

Colour starts to come back into the other man's face.

"Right. Reason two is it couldn't have been anyone else. I don't think I could save myself from drowning, let alone a whole other person. And you're FBI-trained, right?"

" _NSA_ ," he glares.

"Whatever. Point is, I feel like you can drag a human out of a river." He shrugs. "If there were one person I knew could do this, it'd be Wyatt. If there were one person I knew could do this, plus isn't mad at me for stealing the Lifeboat plus doesn't distrust Jiya, it's you."

Garcia is too busy staring down his companion for that long list of mitigating factors to ask who this Wyatt person is that everyone keeps talking about.

"Besides," Rufus sniffs, neatly avoiding Garcia's death glare, "Jiya was insistent. She said it has to be you. That you'd save Lucy."

 

* * *

 

"Shit."

Garcia was admiring the view. Wherever Lucy’s headed to, it’s making for a scenic route. But now Rufus is hitting the steering wheel as if it had personally offended him.

"What's the problem?"

"We need gas."

"There was a sign not long ago. Turn back."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. We don't exactly have oodles of time here."

"Aren't _you_ the one who picked the time?"

This time he's on the receiving end of the glare, but Rufus duly makes the U-turn and in no time they're at the gas station.

Rufus jumps out and Garcia sighs, itching to get out the journal.

He has a million questions, mostly about its owner. But he has to focus. There's one mission at hand. Once Lucy is well and truly safe, Rufus will return him to his timeline and he can pore over the journal, finding all the answers she'd promised him.

Except for one.

Why is he so invested in saving her?

He had known this woman for less than ten minutes and bought into her story quicker than Lorena had been won over by timeshare.

There was something about her, and no matter how much he attempts to analyse it; to understand it, he can't. She'd gotten under his skin. He doesn't enjoy the sensation. God knows it had taken Lorena a year just to make a dent.

He doesn't let people in easily. He didn't trust easily. It was what had always made him good at his job. That and his analytical mind. But now it has no idea what to do with her. What to do with Lucy. What to do with this question.

_Why is he so invested in saving her?_

He's looking out the window, trying to make sense of them, when he sees something. There's a woman in the store, looking at gum.

He suddenly understands what it must've been like for Jiya.

The woman's hair is dark and long. She's strangely young; many years younger than the version he'd just met. In seconds he's out of the car, darting to Rufus.

"That's her, isn't it?"

Rufus looks confused at first but follows Garcia's pointing finger and his jaw drops.

"Y-yeah. That's Lucy." A sunny smile breaks out on his face. "She's still alive! We made it in time!"

As if magnetically, Garcia feels his feet moving towards her.

It's Rufus' voice that stops him.

"What are you doing?!"

"I'm just going to –"

"She can't see you, remember?"

"And I'm _NSA-trained_ , remember?"

"You're also fifty feet tall! It doesn't really scream inconspicuous!"

He wants to point out that he'd been the same height while trailing suspects, but Lucy is nearing the cashier and soon he will have missed his chance to enter without being seen.

He walks off briskly, Rufus muttering behind him about nobody ever listening to him.

He enters, cursing the clanging bell before nodding the bill of his cap at the cashier and quickly moving away before Lucy can make eye contact. Then he slowly creeps forward again, till he's in the aisle right behind her. She's singing, he realises. Very softly, under her breath, but it's beautiful nonetheless.

"Happy? In love, perhaps?" asks the cashier, who seems to be in her mid seventies.

"Kind of," Lucy smiles back, finally ending her dithering. " _Happy_ , not in love. But, well, also nervous."

"Ah, so that's why you've been staring at the gum for the past five minutes."

Lucy blushes – she _blushes_ and Garcia is mesmerised.

She's young and not entirely carefree, but not burdened with everything the other Lucy – _his Lucy_ , he supposed – had been, either.

The differences, though minute, seem to make up an entirely different woman to the one he'd met just minutes ago. Minutes ago, for him. For her, it will be over a decade till that meeting. It's surreal.

"I'm on my way home to tell my mother that I'm dropping out of school to be a singer. We have a band, actually."

"Oh." The woman's face is sympathetic. "Well, good thing you got one of my berry pies. Should help the news go down a little better. You know what they say about the spoonful of sugar."

Lucy laughs nervously. She's _nervous_. He's rapt.

"With the way things are going, I may just stress-eat it on the way there. Especially if it's as good as it looks."

"Oh, it's better," the old lady laughs, though clearly flattered.

Lucy's being kind, he realises. She's nervous yet setting the woman's fears about her pie to rest.

"You sure you wanna be a singer?"

Lucy's forehead screws up as she thinks.

Then: "No. But I know I don't want to be a historian. I'm so sick of everything in my life being planned out; controlled. For once I just want to live free."

The woman smiles gently. "Looks like you have your speech planned out."

Lucy laughs, the joke catching her by real surprise. Her head tosses back for a second and he catches the fading sunlight reflect off her magnetic brown irises.

"I wish. I'll probably be practising whatever I can come up with all the way there."

"Well, drive safe, dear."

"Thank you, truly," Lucy smiles back.

She takes her change and lays her hand over the other woman's for a second as they make eye contact.

_I know. I'm sorry, I truly am. You didn't deserve that. They didn't deserve that._

There is something about how genuine she is that no one can fake, he thinks. Perhaps that's what it is about her.

She shoots one last cursory glance around, thankfully not particularly noticing him, before making her way out. He watches the cashier watch Lucy leave. There's enchantment in her eyes.

Garcia doesn't blame her.

He wonders if he'd had the same look on his face after his Lucy had left. 

He supposes he could ask Rufus, but he only really has a modicum of trust in the man and that’s only because he seems to want to save Lucy as much as Garcia does. Again, he's not surprised. It makes an unexplainable kind of sense that Lucy would have people willing to put their lives at risk for her.

He is one of them now, he supposes.

Remembering where he is and what he has to do, he quickly buys something small then heads back out. Rufus is lying down low in the front seat, panic written all over his face.

"Flynn! She almost saw you! She almost saw me!"

But for the moment he doesn't care about Rufus or the way he puzzingly calls him Flynn. Doesn't care about anything but that smile. Her smile; her little laugh. The light in her eyes.

She's not dying. Not today or any other.

"Shut up and let's go save Lucy."

 

* * *

 

It's dark.

They’re the only two cars on the winding road. If he'd been travelling with Lucy, he would've told her to pull over and rest for the night. But she's too anxious and excited, of course. Off to tell her mother she's going to be a singer. With no idea of her true fate.

_She saw a younger Lucy drowning._

_Lucy died._

He feels the injustice pumping through his veins. Rittenhouse wouldn't claim another innocent soul. Not a single more. And especially not hers.

_Why is he so invested in saving her?_

Because she deserves saving. Because, in a way, she'd saved him. She'd given him hope. Because of that smile, her kindness, her innocent dream of being a singer.

Lucy Preston deserves to live. She deserves to get married one day, to whomever that lucky person is who gets her. She deserves life. Just like his family did. But her, he'll save.

_Don’t rely on it; on me. My family did and look where that got them. Whatever you think I'm capable of doing, I'm not._

No, this he'll do. Even if it's the very last thing he does.

 

* * *

 

He's paging through the journal.

For all Lucy's smiles and grit; enchantment and obvious intelligence – she is not a chronological journaller. He doesn't understand how this is possible till he realises she just wasn't using a chronology he identified with. When he realises it's in the order _she'd_ experienced things, divided into historic moments, he finds the hang of using it. It's so difficult not to get distracted, though, especially when there are notes in the margins addressed directly towards him.

"Ok, have you found it yet?"

Rufus sounds damn near manic.

He turns another page then another.

"Yes! It's right here."

He pulls the journal closer for any light from the road to illuminate her writing.

His eyes widen.

"It's just after the next mile marker. At about 9:57."

They both look at the clock.

They have just under ten minutes. Rufus speeds up.

 

* * *

 

He's so nervous he can barely think.

He's gone over water safety and drowning protocols a dozen times in his mind. Rufus has taken him through his own protocols: history-preserving ones.

_Don't let her see your face. Use a fake accent because no offence but yours is super thick and super hard to forget. And come right back here as soon as she's in the clear. I have to get you back to your own time._

Garcia’s tapping his leg. He's never done that before. He’s been to Iraq and never once did he tap his leg anxiously.

"You realise what's at stake here, right?"

Rufus is as verbose as if he were the one about to jump into a river with someone's life at stake. He's nervous enough for the both of them plus a clown car full of people.

"Lucy is what holds the team together. She's the one who writes that journal and helped you take on Rittenhouse. She's saved my life more than a few times. She's the only reason we know anything about any time we go to."

"Rufus! I get it."

"Save Lucy, save the world." He cocks his head with a frown. "Well, maybe. Save Lucy, maybe save the world. But don't save Lucy, the world definitely goes up in flames."

Garcia is about to ponder how quickly he can strangle the man then take over the wheel, when suddenly Lucy's taillights up ahead swerve.

It happens in a millisecond.

One moment she's on the road, the next she's not.

Rufus brakes immediately and as Garcia's chest hits the dashboard, he glimpses terror marred into Lucy’s stunning face as the car flips over the edge.

Then there's a huge splash and it's like _he's_ being hit by the frigid river water.

He's frozen.

But Rufus hits him, shoves him; pulls the journal from his hands.

"What are you waiting for?! Flynn it up, Flynn!"

Instantly he's tumbling out of the car and his feet are running, seeming to speed out beneath him. He flings off his jacket before jumping atop the guardrail and diving.

The water hits like an icy train but he fights against it, arching his body as he presses powerfully against its clutches. It can't have her. He won't let it.

In seconds he’s glimpsed her, pushing and fighting against her door. There's utter terror on her features as she scrabbles against her seatbelt. It seems stuck and she’s panicking as the water reaches her chin. He tries to block out her yells as he fishes for the gadget Rufus had given him to break open the window, his fingers slow and clumsy in the freezing water.

It’s just cleared his pocket when he realises there’s no screaming anymore. She’s gone under.

His heart drops and he pushes forward, watching her try and kick at the windshield, still pulling helplessly at her seatbelt.

He takes a breath then dives down, just in time to see her eyes close. He wants to call out to her but he forces himself to focus, using the gadget to break the glass then immediately cut the seatbelt off her.

It can't have her, either. She is meant for bigger things.

Singer or historian, or something different altogether. She'll choose. She'll live.

He can feel the broken glass cutting through his shirt as he leans into the car to pull her out. He’s running out of air quickly too, he realises. He’s never been particularly great in the water. Give him a gun and a target and he’d ace it every time. Water is unpredictable; ferocious. You could do everything right and still be claimed by its clutches. You could make it clear out and drown on dry ground.                      

Finally – _finally_ – he has her clear of the car, his lungs on fire.

He realises the car had sunk fast. The surface is too far up. He’s desperate for a breath.

He wonders: Rufus had said this was meant to be. Are they meant to die together?

Catching sight of her face, he buries the thought and kicks harder, pushing against the water and the extra weight.

He can feel darkness creeping in, clouding his mind and vision; forcing his eyes closed – air!

Yes! Yes, he'd made it. Instantly he lifts himself higher so Lucy is out of the water too and begins hitting her back.

A few heart-wrenching seconds pass before he hears her cough then hesitantly start breathing. They're small and shallow but they're breaths.

She's shivering. He thinks of his jacket up above but hears sirens. Rufus must've called 911 after all.

"Are you ok?" he asks in his fairly horrid Scottish accent.

"Th-thank you. Thank you." She’s still coughing.

He wants to meet her eyes, and almost does before remembering.

Instead he keeps his hand on her back for a moment longer before swimming up to the bank. He pulls his cap low and sets her down.

_Come right back here as soon as she's in the clear._

"I have to go."

He does. But it’s the last thing he wants to do.

_I hate leaving you alone._

He understands now. The mission is bigger; greater than anything else.

_You're going to have to do terrible things. Things you never thought you were capable of._

But it still feels so wrong.

Still, he forces himself to take off swimming in the other direction.

"God, thank you," he hears her crying, over and over.

The sound of her sobs makes him re-live that one instant that had seemed to stretch into forever. When she’d realised she was going into the river; when she’d realised all her life plans had led to naught.

He remembers the defeat on her face as she struggled against the seatbelt holding her back like her mother’s expectations.

He wonders what sort of a scar this will leave on her.  
  
Thinking of the journal, he realises he'll soon find out. He'll soon find out everything there is to know about Lucy Preston.

It gives him a sort of comfort not even the icy water can draw from his soaking bones.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the last part (of what was supposed to be a drabble LOL)! Hope you enjoyed :)

The Hindenburg is on fire.

It’s not unlike the feeling in his veins.

He sees her. He can talk to her.

It’s been so long. He’s waited so long. To see her again.

Lucy. The only person who truly understands his fight.

But, of course, that’s not this Lucy. This Lucy is ruining everything. So he pulls his gun and heads straight for her. He supposes it’s part of what causes it, but it still smarts when she sees him and gasps, recoiling in horror.

“It’s time we talked,” he explains. “You need to understand who and what you’re dealing with.”

“I understand that you’re a psychopath trying to burn everything to the ground.”

This is his third Lucy and he’s officially convinced that she will never cease to surprise him. No matter when he meets her, she will always be different.

This one, she has his Lucy’s determination and grit, but the fear in her eyes is new to him. Her uncertain demeanour is alien.

“Well, that depends on your point of view, Lucy.”

She sucks in a breath.

“How do you know my name?”

He wants to tell her. Tell her everything. That this isn’t the first time they’d met, nor even the second. He wants to tell her the way she had told him.

_I know what you're going through._

But how can he? How can he make her believe him when in her eyes he’s already the villain?

A psychopath, she’d called him.  
  
“I know everything about you. Your father’s dead.” He tries not to let it show that he knows the real truth about her father, too. She would find that out when the time was right. “You think you’re meant to follow in your mother’s footsteps, but you don’t really want to. You wanna know how I know?”

 He pulls out the journal, immediately flipping it open. This he can show her. Surely this will make her believe.

“That’s my handwriting,” she says, aghast. “But I didn’t write that.”

“Not yet. But you will.”

She’s so confused that she laughs, horrified. It’s a bastardisation of the first time he’d seen her smile.

It’s not lost on him that mere months ago he’d been her. Unconvinced; lost. Now _he_ is the seemingly insane one talking about time travel and the future.

“I know what you’re really meant to be, Lucy, and it isn’t a teacher.”

He’d put so much together. From the journal, yes, but also thinking back to that night she’d come to him. The night she’d saved him. The same night, for him, he’d saved her. He’d put together things she hadn’t said; things that left him convinced she’d told him even less of the story than he’d imagined.

So he has his theories. But, mostly, he knows that woman in Sao Paulo was no teacher.

_Lucy is what holds the team together. She's the one who writes that journal and helped you take on Rittenhouse. She's saved my life more than a few times. She's the only reason we know anything about any time we go to. Save Lucy, save the world._

Rufus had been right, he discovered. If only because sometimes she – her words –  was the only thing that held _him_ together.

Lucy’s face mars. “Why would I believe anything from someone who killed their own family?!”

It’s like he’s in that river all over again, his lungs on fire with ice in his veins.

He has no idea how to handle this accusation from the same woman who had told him she understood.

But she isn’t the same Lucy, and he will have to save her once more. He steps forward.

“Just ask them why they really chose you for this mission. Ask them what Rittenhouse is.”

“Rittenhouse?” she repeats, confused.

It comes off her tongue like cotton and it’s strange to think that, for the foreseeable future, that one little word will ensnare her life irreparably.

He thinks of his Lucy. Thinks of her words in the journal, stating that one day they would work together. He was foolish. He should’ve known that day could not be today. He isn’t Lucy. He can’t effortlessly make someone believe; trust.

“There’s so much you don’t know, Lucy. Trust me, I know the feeling. But Rittenhouse is where it all starts. Once you begin to unravel Rittenhouse’s tangled web, everything will become clearer.”

She opens her mouth to respond but suddenly Wyatt is there – Wyatt, the soldier – and on instinct he pulls Lucy to him, his hostage.

_You're going to have to do terrible things._ _Things you never thought you were capable of. Things to me, even._

He’d known it was coming. Everything else she’d written so far had been correct. The Time Machine, Anthony’s motivations and of course everything that would happen here at the Hindenburg. But it still feels so strange to hold her this way, as a shield, when the last time he’d held her it had been to save her. He still has the scarring on his stomach from where the glass had cut deep into his flesh as he reached to pull her from the submerged car.

Lucy’s shivering again, but this time it’s with fear. Of him.

It’s surprising how much that bothers him.

But focus, Flynn. Focus.

“I know for a fact that you’re not gonna shoot!” he shouts to Wyatt.

He _hopes_ he knows for a fact, anyway. He hopes Lucy would’ve warned him about that in the journal.

But next thing he knows there’s a searing shot in his shoulder and he drops Lucy, getting her out of harm’s way. He shoots too and Wyatt ducks, giving him just enough time to get away.

Damn. The bullet hurts but, as he jumps into his car that will take them back to the Mothership, it’s not what’s on his mind.

It’s her.

_Jiya was insistent. She said it has to be you. That you'd save Lucy._

He had. And he would.

No matter how long or what it took; no matter what version of her tried to get in his way.

_Save Lucy, save the world._

She’d promised and he knew now, more than ever, that she was right. He’d save Lucy. He’d save his family.


End file.
